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Thursday, August 18, 2011

Devils center Travis Zajac will miss at least the first month and a half of the season after having surgery this morning in Winnipeg to repair a torn left Achilles tendon, Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello said.

Lamoriello said Zajac's recovery will take "three months" from today.

Zajac, who lives in his hometown of Winnipeg in the off-season, tore his Achilles while doing plyometrics during an off-ice training session on Wednesday.

"It was repaired this morning at 9:30 in Winnipeg," Lamoriello said. "It was a success -- a simple operation. It's just timing and healing."

Lamoriello said the surgery was conducted by a doctor in Winnipeg that the team is familiar with.

"We know the doctor up there and we had a conference call with our medical people with Travis and everyone on the phone," Lamoriello said. "We made a decision that he is there (so do the surgery there). MRIs were taken, all the proper preparation prior. We were totally comfortable with the doctor that did it, so it was successful and now it's just a healing process."

As bad as it was that Zajac tore the Achilles, it would have been a lot worse if he had ruptured it.

"He'll be in a cast for a week and then he'll be in a walking boot right after that," Lamoriello said. "Then, it's the healing process, which takes around three months."

That means Zajac's team record of playing in 401 consecutive regular season games will come to an end. He last missed a game on Oct. 24, 2006 (his rookie season) when a bruised thigh kept him out of a game in Pittsburgh.

The Devils' veterans are scheduled to report for training camp physicals on Sept. 15 -- four weeks from today. Their regular season opener against Philadelphia on Oct. 8 is seven weeks from Saturday.

Lamoriello said there is "no question" that Zajac's injury is a significant loss for his team.

"He's one of your top two centers," he said. "If you want to look at the positive side, it's that it happened now and it didn't happen during the season and he'll be back before you know it."

Lamoriello said he has no plans to sign another center now to replace Zajac or bring one in for training camp as a tryout.

"That's why you have depth," he said. "It will give somebody else an opportunity to come forward and see what they can do."

***Lamoriello said defenseman Peter Harrold, who signed a one-year, two-way contract with the Devils last week, was someone the team has liked since his days at Boston College. He'll add depth in the organization.

"He's a right shot and has played in the NHL the last three years," Lamoriello said. "We've always liked him, so we'll see what he does."

***The NHL announced its national TV broadcast schedule today. The Devils again have no games scheduled for NBC.

They have seven games scheduled to be on Versus (which will be renamed NBC Sports Network on Jan. 2):

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.